Ways You Can Help Your Players

Chris Heard, of the wonderful, actual play Icosahedrophilia podcast, and I were talking via twitter the other day on ways a DM can help his players, and he suggested somebody should write a blog post about it. So I did. Sometimes there are things your players may forget to do that you can remind them of, in order to benefit their party. This is especially useful if you are running a party full of newbie players, as sometimes the amount of options available to them can be overwhelming. The ones I point out specifically here are due to my past experience with my party, and some suggestions from the D&D community on Twitter.

I start with this one because it’s what started the conversation the other day that led to this post. You can find it on page 284 0f the Player’s Handbook. If a character takes 2 identical move actions twice in a row on the same turn, he has double moved. A double move allows the PC to add the two speeds together of the movement he repeated, and take it as one long move. This may allow him to get out of a sticky situation through difficult terrain, for example, as it grants them more movement through it when the moves are combined into 1. My players have never taken advantage of the double move. Never, ever. I have to remedy this myself, as up until recently I was confused by it. They thought if they took 2 move actions, they had to be the same type of move. Silly us.

Intimidate Skill

Good role-playing opportunities can come out of intimidating bloodied opponents in battle. It can also cut out some of the grind towards the end of a battle. If the party bloodies up a Bugbear leader, surrounded by his minions, they can intimidate him into surrendering and thus ending the fight, while perhaps learning some information from him in the process. Remember, they still get the XP even if they didn’t kill him. Find the rules for Intimidate on page 186 of the Player’s Handbook.

Bluff Skill

Another useful skill, as once per encounter a player can grant himself combat advantage versus an enemy by bluffing and feinting. The skill can also be used to hide during combat. Find these rules on page 183 of the Player’s Handbook.

Heal Skill

Heal is one of those skills that when used in battle can be very much a game changer. A PC can make Heal checks to administer first aid and grant his companion the use of second wind, without that character spending an action, or rolling a saving throw right then and there, or at a +2 at the end of his or her turn. Very, very useful stuff, that at least my players never take advantage of. That’s in page 185 of the Player’s Handbook.

Not Just Using Powers

There are tons of stuff the PC’s can do during a battle that aren’t just “I use Twin Strike… okay, I use Twin Strike again”. The Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 introduced terrain powers, (the hanging chandelier and the table full of chemicals that can be flipped over are two examples), and page 42 of the DMG gives you a guideline for when your players want to do things out of the ordinary. Remind them of what they can do: “Bob the Cleric, you can pull down the tapestry if you want, it’ll slow the Bugbear a bit if you do…”

Knowledge Checks

Remind players that when they first meet an unknown monster, that they can attempt knowledge checks to see if their characters know anything about the creature. Sometimes players will just be so eager to roll initiative that they won’t take in the flavor of the scene and the encounter. Slow them down… “guys, want to see what you know about these floating round creatures with multiple eyes stalks?” Also, as they explore dungeons and the underground, remind them that dungeoneering checks would aid them as they make their way about.

Rituals

It’s been my experience that rituals are a bit underused, at least at my table. Encourage your ritual casters to find appropriate rituals for certain situations, they may not even know that certain rituals exists, so you may want to have a cheat list of rituals handy for when you are creating treasure parcels, and place some scrolls around that may come in handy in situations that you can anticipate will come up in your game.

As you can tell, there are many ways you can help out your players at the table. Reminding them of their options should not be seen as hand holding, but rather, collaboration, which after all, is part of what the game is about. Don’t they help you with some of the bookkeeping too?

This list is obviously not complete, so if I missed something, why don’t you leave it in the comment section below and share with other readers.

Actually, Richie and I spoke about this months ago and we came to the conclusion that we were playing the double move rule wrong. It just never came up at the table again to refute the way we were playing it.

It’s good to see that 4e DMG has a section to deal with out of the ordinary. I The campaign I am running now will be 1 year old next month. The players were all new. 2 had played extensively in college, but had not played in 15 years. Although we don’t use 4e, I do encourage the players to interpret and suggest options to explore each of their professions, skills, and powers. It’s your job as the GM to help the group develop their skills at the game. A healthy encouragement to explore boundaries/options of ANY game system will usually make for a better table. I think that GMs should take this approach towards Roles, Rules, & Realms they explore. (Hmm.. that should be a game name… Roles, Rulers, & Realms :)

I run two tables, one of which has problems with a combo of “not just powers” and “knowledge” checks. They tend to play with an MMO (see it, pull it, mash power buttons till it’s dead, move on) strategy.

I’ve found that suggesting they do a check snaps them back into “D&D mode” but find that even with fantastic terrain about, they tend to think that using an at-will is going to be more efficient. What I’ve found is that in order to make optimizing players actually use the terrain you have to make big things happen with it (monster’s crushed under bookcases, flaming terrain when brazziers are knocked over, etc). It always feels a little overpowered, but the power mongers may not bite otherwise.

The concept behind the Intimidate skill is useful: you get to have a non-combat way of ending the battle by making him surrender.

The problem is the implementation: you can get any bloodied enemy to completely drop out of battle, which I’ve seen players abuse to death. There’s even a build entirely devoted to making Vecna automatically surrender in terror to you at level 21. That’s just stupid.

Nice! My players are just starting to remember these things on a regular basis (after a year and 8 months of play), but I think it’s all the cleric’s fault. He was complaining that he didn’t have enough to heal, so I started hitting harder. NOW my players suddenly want to utilize all these fancy moves and special plays :)

Good tips there. I cannot emphasize player’s use rituals more. If they hesitate using them, encourage use by giving them out as 1 shot spell scrolls (at least one per 3 levels). Encourage your players to use them! They will break your plans, cause you to suddenly improvise, and at times flip your night’s session around. Get your players using them. Rituals are cool solutions to difficult problems.

i’ve used phrases like, “remember, the environment is there to be played with…” or something to that effect… basically some players need a little nudge to remind them that the environment is more than window dressing…

Hey Noob, could you please write an entry about your players? I’d be interested to know what you have learned about their gaming styles (maybe give Robin Laws-esque profiles) and what have they learned from 4E and you.

i know we LIKE to think that the last half of combat is a tense battle of attrition, a complex war of at-wills. but honestly, once the encounter powers are long gone and the PCs are still whacking down the dragon 10hp at a time, i’m all for anything to end things quickly. if the PCs aren’t going to make the intimidate check, the monster may as well make an appeal for mercy itself.

I was pointed here by my DM – and am going to make a more generalised version of the response I made to him.

Intimidate grants the target a +10 bonus to their will (for being hostile) before being eliminated. If you are a charisma based class with trained intimidate, this means you will be rolling Charisma -5 vs Will. Say you’re 6th level with a +2 implement and Expertise. You’re at -8 to hit as against a normal implement attack. If you need a default 11 to hit (a bit above average), you now would get an average of five hits for every successful intimidate check – and given that the effect of those hits helps everyone else take the bad guy down, this isn’t a good option. And that’s a very solid default case. (If you’re e.g. a Drow Feylock with Beguiling Tongue as a utility then Intimidate becomes a really good option. But it’s the realm of specialised builds).

Bluff: A standard action for a possible +2 to hit? This is already looking bad. Then we factor in the insight check of the target, so you’re normally getting it only 66% or so of the time. This is looking like an even worse option than intimidate. At least if Intimidate succeeds you’ve done something useful. Probably.

Heal Skill: Heal by Second Wind was effectively a DC15 check to give one of your standard actions to someone else. I know a striker hitting is better than a leader hitting. But not normally twice as good even with the risk of failure. This is seldom a strong choice.

Not just using powers? Very DM dependent. And if the DM isn’t cluing it or rewarding it it’s a bad idea.

I recall using heal in combat back at the first game day. Indeed, I think it IS very good for emergency situations. It’s not merely giving someone else your standard action as Francis suggests, but by triggering someone else’s second wind it allows you to get an unconscious ally back into the combat! And at only a DC 15, it’s kind of a no-brainer not to try.

Intimidate and Bluff I agree absolutely with, though. Intimidate is too difficult given that the enemy always gets a +10 bonus, and bluffing as a standard action is just silly.

Francis, I see what you are saying, but I disagree a little about the benefits of Intimidate and Heal, which you dismiss as bad moves.

Here is how I look at it – I can make a house-rule that states that the players can’t pull punches and just knock the creature unconscious just by saying so. Right now our deal is that they can declare that they will not do lethal damage to a creature so that they can interrogate it later. I can make intimidate extremely useful by replacing the current way they do things with a requirement that they intimidate the creature in order to interrogate it – otherwise they must kill it completely.

As a DM, I have thrown in lots of creatures that “know things” that the PCs could try and find out – this situation is perfect for utilizing that rule.

Plus, if the battle is just dragging on, and they can stop it by making an intimidate check (even if it’s a long shot) it is a better option for the party, so they might as well try.

As far as the heal check thing… there haven’t been very many, but there have been a few battles where one or two particular players really needed ‘just one more’ healing surge to make it through a tough battle and they were wishing the cleric or warlord had a little more juice. The heal check would work well in that situation too.

In my opinion, these are all good options that enhance teamwork and role-playing.

But I do agree with you about these being DM dependent – I happen to like when my players bring fresh ideas and ways of doing things to the table, so I applaud these additions to my game – if your DM isn’t that way, then yeah, best to forget using ‘not just powers.’

I missed the case of Heal at DC15 often being better than Heal at DC10 in cases where someone is in negative hit points (one just stabilises, the other brings them back into the fight). This is fundamentally different because it does not cost an additional standard action – instead it’s taking a risk with your standard action to bring an entire extra ally (and preferably therefore a full round action) into play. But Heal at DC15 doesn’t provide ‘Just one more healing surge’. It means that someone else can access the surge they could have done themselves by spending a standard action.

If the battle’s dragging on, then trying an intimidate check and failing will make it drag on even more because a failed intimidate does nothing.

As for your other case on intimidate, sure you can make a house rule to make intimidate more useful. When I’m DMing I can make a house rule to make bouncing around on a pogo stick while singing Monty Python songs worthwhile. But in both cases it’s only a sensible choice because of the house rule.

As a player, I have to agree with Francis. The risk/reward in using some of the skills as they put it in the player’s handbook is not worth using in combat. Using bluff as a standard action is garbage compared to just getting one of your companions to flank the creature. If your party is set up right, heal is also useless. Our party now has a pally tank and w/ his LOHs and the clerics heals, we are pretty set. The battle has to go really awry if you have to use heal checks. And in the almost 2 yrs, we have been playing, we have used intimidate maybe twice. I think its b/c we like to kill all evildoers. And as for the crappy rituals and magic items, lets just say for rituals, i thing phantom steed is the only one we have used and if the magic item doesnt have a property, our party tends to forget they even exist.

I thought the same thing as Francis about the Bluff check- seems like a silly waste of a standard action. However, houseruling it to a minor or move action would be silly as well. I was thinking about house ruling it to whenever you spend an action point, you can bluff as a minor action. Treat it like some sort of free feat to give the players.

Hey all…I used Bluff as a standard action in a game this weekend, and it was AWESOME. My Goliath gladiator was immobilized out of range from a monster with no ranged attack. I got in the bluff and made my save, and next round hit and killed the bad guy, just barely making it thanks the to the combat advantage. Just Sayin’.